Google's Super-Speed Internet Gets the Fast Track in San Antonio

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Google's Super-Speed Internet Gets the Fast Track in San Antonio

Image: nan palmero/

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Google's ultra-high-speed internet service is on the fast track in another American city.

The city council in San Antonio has approved construction of at least some of the infrastructure required to bring the coveted Google Fiber to southern Texas. That doesn't mean that Google will select the city, but the fast-tracked approval does show just how badly cities want the service. Competition between broadband providers in most cities is meager at best, and the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable would consolidate ownership even further. Google Fiber promises not only to improve competition but also significantly boost network speeds, which are essential to the continued evolution of the internet.

Thus far, Google Fiber is only available in Kansas City, but two other locations – Provo, Utah and Austin, Texas – have been announced. San Antonio is one of nine metropolitan areas currently being considered for Google Fiber. While Time Warner Cable's CFO has complained that there is no market for such services, cities across the country are bending over backwards to bring Google Fiber to their towns. "What we've seen in other communities in which Google Fiber has moved in is that it lowers the cost of Internet access for everyday consumers," San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro told the San Antonio Express-News. "And that's a great thing in a place like San Antonio, where we do still see a significant digital divide."

Google has laid down a list of requirements for potential Fiber sites, including information about existing infrastructure, access to utility poles and other infrastructure, and permits and other assurances of speedy construction. San Antonio is moving quickly towards compliance, having approved the lease for about 40 "fiber huts" for Google. The 12-by-26-foot cabinets house critical infrastructure for the fiber service. Placement of the huts in Kansas City has been one of the few controversial aspects of the service's deployment. San Antonio approved the lease of the huts for 20 years, with the option of extending the lease every 15 years thereafter.

San Antonio has another thing going for it: it owns the local power utility and 86 percent of the utility poles, according to the paper. AT&T owns the other 14 percent. That could make deployment faster and reduce the amount of red tape Google has to deal with. Kansas City also owns its own utility poles, lending credit to the idea that municipal ownership will help attract Google to the city.

There's no telling when construction might start. Google announced Austin as its second fiber city almost a year ago, but the service isn't available yet. And before even making a decision in San Antonio, Google will still need to do quite a bit more analysis, company spokesperson Mark Strama told the Express-News. But the larger point here is that Google Fiber is indeed expanding. And that's what the country needs.